Category: <span>Life Balance</span>

Category: Life Balance

Leadership, Life Balance, Self care, Self Improvement

Tips for Transitioning after the Pandemic

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Hope you all are well and getting outside to enjoy some of this Spring weather.  As my blog readers know, getting outside in nature to relax and renew is an important part of self-care. Don’t miss the Spring! And as we transition from Winter to Spring, it’s a good time to consider the transition to the world after the Pandemic. Recently, SIYLI (Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute) conducted a global survey that included 59 countries. In that survey, 85% of respondents reported that Emotional Intelligence skills were critical for the present and in the near future for all of us, personally and professionally!  We need now, more than ever, to deepen our human, heart-centered skills to make some big transitions.  Check out this article from SIYLI! Here are the article highlights and some excellent tips: Many of us are probably feeling a mixture of both excitement and anxiety about returning to (a new version of) “normal” life.  The future we are shaping will require authenticity and vulnerability—pillars that we collectively strengthened over this last year.  Human-centered skills like mindfulness and emotional intelligence can support our re-entry process. These skills support us to reflect on what we learned. Then, we can integrate those lessons …

Leadership, Life Balance, Self care

Empathy in the Caring Professions

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by Marguerite Ham Balancing Empathy and Burnout I recently read an interesting article in Quartz about the possibility that empathy could cause exhaustion and burnout. This can happen to anyone, but particularly to people in professions which involve caring for people in distress: the ill, the bereaved, the mentally ill, or people in a life crisis. There are three different types of empathy. All of them are part of emotional intelligence: Cognitive empathy means you intellectually understand other peoples’ persepectives and what language would be most effective in communicating with them. Emotional empathy is feeling what the other person feels — which can, in some cases, be too much for us to bear. Empathic concern makes us want to help people in need. We need to look out for “empathy distress,” which happens when we absorb too much of the negative emotions of others. This is widespread in today’s COVID-19 pandemic, even in non-caring professions. Imagine how easy it is for someone in a caring profession, like funeral service or medicine, to slip into this condition! Self-care for empathy distress You can help yourself avoid empathy distress with a good self-care regimen and exercising the self-management part of emotional intelligence. …

Life Balance, Self care

5 Steps to Becoming More Productive Working from Home

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Since the start of the Pandemic, we have found our selves working from home more often.  From conversations with many of my clients, I have found that they are struggling with focus while working from home, getting things done efficiently & timely, and integrating home and work life successfully.  Here are 5 Steps to help you save time and work more efficiently from home. 1. Create a routine Since many of us are no longer commuting to work every day and working from home, use that “commute time” to transition into work mode.  Create a routine.  I recently had a Zoom call with my brother, Bob, and I noticed he was in a dress shirt and jacket.  He is currently working from home 100%.  I asked him about his formal clothing and why was that necessary if he was working from home?  He said, “I never changed my morning routine, I get up every day, Monday – Friday and follow my same routine as if I was going into the office, including getting into my work clothes.  The routine and clothing are part of my mindset, that says, ‘it’s time to work’.”  What is your morning routine that says, “it’s …

Leadership, Life Balance

‘Tis the Season to Love Your Staff

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The 12 Days of Appreciation by Marguerite Ham I was recently reading the Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, by Sarah Ban Breathnach. This book is a wonderful compilation of essays that stimulate reflection on how we are living or not living our lives with intention and appreciation for those most dear to us. I highly recommend it.  There is a great quote by Aristotle:  “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” As leaders, there is one thing we must repeatedly do for our staff members, appreciate them, love them, let them know we care!  Unfortunately, in our society of always onto next and busy being busy, this important way of being for a leader can fall to the bottom of the list or get lost in the chaos of the day to day whirlwind of work.  It is, however, one of the most important habits for a leader in order for people to feel valued and want to stay with you and the organization and serve the customers.  “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee – are more productive, …

Life Balance, Success

Are You Living Your Values?

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by Marguerite Ham If we live in a way that conflicts with our deep internal values, we can’t help but be unhappy, though we might not consciously know why. In the midst of our busy life, we don’t often stop to think about our personal value system. The list below will help you discover the values that have deep meaning to you. You can use these values to review your own personal value system which you can keep handy to help you assess new situations or re-assess any situation that makes you uneasy.  Often, when we are feeling strangely uncomfortable or upset in a situation, conversation or circumstance, it is because the situation is pushing against our value system.  What Are Your Values? Could you sit down and list your top five deep personal values? If not, this is a great exercise. To build your value list, read through this list of values and check any that have great importance to you. Don’t worry about dictionary definitions or what other people think; you know what these words represent to you, and that’s what is important. The words you check should represent principles you hold dear or values you strive to …

Leadership, Life Balance, Success

Leaders Set the Example

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A friend and client, John Horan, forwarded a Harvard Business Review article to me: Leading Teams: If You Multitask During Meetings, Your Team Will, Too. I found it interesting and right on!  I think we each occasionally find ourselves guilty of the sins noted in this article and setting a bad example for our team.  Take a few minutes to read the article. Then think about it, and then find ways to take small steps and make small changes to set the example for your co-workers, direct reports and peers! Here are some highlights from the article: The more senior (years and position) we become in an organization, the more influence and impact we have on others – the ripple effect amplifies! Self-awareness comes into play – take time to reflect and ask yourself the questions below – be honest! Common Examples that Have a Negative Ripple Effect Working after hours – I am guilty of this one!  (Note:  I used the delayed delivery option so this would go out on Monday afternoon instead of Sunday night!) Sending emails at night is a problem (study in the article looked at Sunday evening – very interesting research, check it out!) Most …

Life Balance, Self care

Finding Balance in an Unbalanced World

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I recently read a book, Breaking the Trust Barrier, by JV Venable —  an excellent book; I highly recommend it!  One of the topics it touched on was creating balance in our lives.  The author, a former commander and demonstration leader of the USAF’s elite demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, suggested a way to monitor our life balance through the “Pillars of Life”.  His Pillars of Life are: Faith Family Friends Health Work If one of the five is out of balance, it will affect the others in some way, and the pillars eventually start crumbling!  How to Know if Balance is Missing in Your Life Most of us are “busy being busy” and rarely take the time to reflect on these five key areas to monitor our life balance.  I have been training and coaching people in organizations for over 30 years, and I continue to consistently hear: I am so tired I feel like I am burned out I don’t have time to breathe I never have enough time for “me” I wish I could take a vacation by myself and disconnect I am not sleeping well My tank is so empty I have nothing to give my family …

Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Life Balance

Leadership and Gratitude

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Thanksgiving is right around the corner and a perfect time for reflecting on the people we are grateful for in our personal and professional lives. Find ways to demonstrate gratitude all year long! In my workshops and retreats discussing leadership, there are many important leadership characteristics that seem to come up over and over again: Humility Honest and Respectful Communication Clear Vision Trustworthy I am certain you could add many more to this list… The one characteristic I wish I heard more often is Showing Gratitude.  There is a lot of research that supports leadership and the importance of thanking people and showing gratitude.  When co-workers, peers, direct reports, and employees feel adequately recognized and appreciated, they take more ownership in their position, feel more fulfilled, and actually stay at their job.  We know and understand the painful costs in time and energy in replacing valuable staff members.  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: You can see how Showing Gratitude fits into four out of the five basic human needs.  Knowing this, why don’t more leaders demonstrate their gratitude by providing positive feedback and recognition?  Here are some reasons:    They feel that the employee is paid well, and providing them with …

Emotional Intelligence, Life Balance, Success

Frogs and Tomatoes Beat Procrastination

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How many of you spent time creating goals for 2016?  How many of your goals fell by the wayside  because of PROCRASTINATION and anxiety about not having enough time? Wouldn’t it be great to have a strategy to deal with procrastination and make some real progress, particularly on those goals you don’t really enjoy? Find Your Frogs and Eat Them! In his best-selling book “Eat That Frog!”, Brian Tracy talks about “Eating the Frog First”.  The “Frog” represents the task or goal you least want to tackle or get started on.  Here is strategy about how to tackle “the frogs” in your life.  He suggests that you Eat the Frog First to start your day. That way, it is off your plate, and you don’t have a “frog” sitting on your shoulder.  Combining this technique with the time-management technique below could be a winning combination for Getting Things Done, accomplishing your new goals in 2017, and actually overcoming procrastination. Fight Procrastination with Tomatoes The Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s to help people break down tasks into manageable work units and stay on task to complete them. The core of the technique is the belief that …